“Freedom is never really won.

You earn it and win it in every generation”

ALB Gallery is honored and pleased to present for Art Paris 2017, at Le Grand Palais from March 29th till April 2nd, the new event exhibition by young self-educated socially-committed and thought-provoking contemporary artist THE KID, titled BACK TO SCHOOL – A PORTRAIT OF YOUTH IN REVOLT.

“We have reached a pivot point in our world history, questions we believed had become part of the past are all of a sudden urgent again: What will the future for our young generation look like? Will it be at school or in the streets? Will we shut up or will speak up? Will we accept lies or will we scream hell no? Will we look away or will we defend our fellow brothers and sisters? Will we surrender to fear or will we choose courage? Will we still dream of tomorrow?” THE KID

Through hyperrealist life-size installations, sculptures and paintings, THE KID portrays the new starting confrontation of today’s youth with the reviving nationalism and fascism, and translates the chiaroscuro that this confrontation sheds over today’s youth struggling with the fear of the ancestral hatred and the hope for a new revolution for civil rights.

THE KID’s new show not only echoes our political context but also makes it resonate with the historical imagery of youth protesting for civil rights and against the Vietnam war in the 60s, eternalized in particular by images of students facing police violence with improvised armors made of school sports equipment like American football helmets.

Part of the art installation NO PASARÀN to be revealed at ART PARIS 2017 in Le Grand Palais and including also the sculpture MICHAEL JACKSON FOR PRESIDENT - 2017.

Duty of Resistance

Inspired, among others, by Abraham Lincoln’s words “we will never be destroyed from the outside, if we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves (…), to sin by silence when they should protest make cowards of men”, THE KID chose to use his different mediums to question what is at stake again today.

The exhibition stages a never-exhibited-before immersive art installation named NO PASARÀNcomposed of two new thought-provoking spectacular life-size sculptures, questioning the audience and raising social and political awareness, titled respectively MICHAEL JACKSON FOR PRESIDENT and BACK TO SCHOOL, both made of silicone and various other materials (no animal was hurt).

Part of the art installation NO PASARÀN to be revealed at ART PARIS 2017 in Le Grand Palais and including also the sculpture MICHAEL JACKSON FOR PRESIDENT - 2017.

DAMAGED, WE WILL NOT GO QUIET INTO THE NIGHT, I STILL DREAM and RESIST, four new wall-size paintings in oil and egg tempera on canvas, complete this staggering narrative, offering a compelling journey trough the humanist and moving universe of THE KID, in tribute to the enlightening words of Coretta S. King, still so strikingly relevant today.

THE KID (1991), self-taught Dutch-Brazilian, questions social determinism, the thin frontier between innocence and corruption, the equality of chances, or the blurred sentiment of right and wrong in our modern societies. Each iconic work of THE KID exudes an uncanny sense of abandonment stained with inner violence, all the while confronting the audience with the realities of today’s injustice and the moral responsibility of our society, in particular towards its own youth.

M. Jack Lang, IMA Museum President & ex-French State Secretary for Arts, interviewed by Quotidien (French n°1 TV program), at the opening of the new show of THE KID.

Re-exploring sculpture, painting or drawing with technics of his generation -silicone, tagging or Bic- each work of THE KID is born from a thorough investigation followed by months of interpretation, influenced by the Old European Masters as by the American counter-culture filmmaking.

Contemporary artist THE KID interviewed by Quotidien (French n°1 TV program) at the opening of his new show at Le Grand Palais for Art Paris 2017 Exhibition.

« Behind every exquisite thing, there is something tragic » (Oscar Wilde), this is what the works of THE KID have all in common behind youth and beauty, like a flower is destined to fade, and his goal is to immortalize his subjects in their defining moments, forever caught between innocence and corruption.

THE KID is a committed supporter of the International non-governmental organization HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, which defends Human Rights worldwide and, in particular, of its fight against any form of social discrimination and inhumane justice.